On the spine of the Taconic Ridge, where New York meets Massachusetts as Route 2 snakes through the leafy mountain range, Eric Wasileski of Pittsfield stood beating a ceremonial drum and chanting a Buddhist mantra. Beyond its complex spiritual meanings, the ritual is intended to interrupt stagnant thinking and throw a curveball into day-to-day understandings.
“It’s something we’re not used to, it’s not something that’s normal, so it creates curiosity, and curiosity is a place where we can we can grow a lot," he told WAMC. "If we're not telling the answer to ourselves, we're actually questioning things, we can gain a lot of wisdom, we can grow as a person. And so, curiosity is one of the places of refuge. In a suffering world, curiosity is a place where we can take refuge and figure out what it is that we want to do and how we do it, and it's a place that we can learn from.”
Wasileski is a member of Veterans For Peace, an ex-military community dedicated to promoting nonviolence and opposing war, racism, nuclear weapons, and repression across the globe. The chanting and drumming were his way of calming his nerves before setting off on the first leg of the Walk For A New Dawn. The mobile, statewide demonstration is to promote decades-old calls from Native American communities to update the iconography of Massachusetts, which depicts a hand holding a sword over a Native figure and the motto "she seeks with the sword peaceful repose under liberty."
“If you look at the state symbol, it's a weapon of war over a person's head," said Wasileski. "And those people are gone now.”
The arrival of European settlers on the shores of Massachusetts in the 17th century brought plague, violence, and ultimately displacement to the people who had called the land home. Today, the remaining Native Americans in the commonwealth disproportionately fall below the average median household income compared to non-Native communities.
“It's disgusting, it's disturbing, and where we're at in the world is because of these symbols, and it's something that we've always done," said Wasileski. "We've always turned to violence, and if we keep turning to violence, we're going to get to what violence gets us.”
The Walk For a New Dawn – which intends to reach the State House in Boston in mid-August – is also aimed at raising awareness about the impact of sand mining on the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe in Cape Cod and opposition to March’s announcement that the governments of the six New England states were committed to exploring nuclear energy.
Activist Priscilla Lynch of Conway wore a pin on her vintage “Shut Down Vermont Yankee” tie-dye that tethered the easterly walk across Massachusetts to the wider world.
“It says ‘land back from Turtle Island to Palestine,’ and that's true," she told WAMC. "We talk about land back for the Native folks here that was stolen from them- The Palestinians have had their land stolen from them. They're treated as others, just like Indigenous people are treated as others. And if again, if we want to make progress in who we are and how we live with each other, we need to address that stuff now and move on. And the longer we don't, then the longer it's going to take for any progress. And you know, the Earth isn't going to wait that long for us.”
The walkers were equipped for the journey with bespoke, handmade banners for their cause, with statements like “listen to Indigenous nations” in vivid hues splashed across colorful backdrops. Creator Sally Ally Muffin Stuffin has been making vibrant, portable protest art since the first Gulf War.
“People in our culture who continue to do horrible things to other people and other lands and our lands is because they can't look deeply at the truth," she said. "And I do feel like beauty is an avenue in which you can go into that deep place where you can digest it in a way that is not harmful to you.”
Sally Ally Muffin Stuffin offered her aesthetic appraisal of the current Massachusetts flag to WAMC.
“I'm not impressed," she laughed. "I mean, I see the racism right off, but to me, a wide field with an image in the middle... But you know, it was created who knows when and stuff like that, I mean, clearly not with my values, so I don't particularly like it.”
The Massachusetts Seal, Flag, and Motto Commission, the entity charged with updating the symbology, has only met once this year -- and only after WAMC questioned its activity. The body has selected three finalists each for new versions of the commonwealth’s seal, flag, and motto.
But for now, the image of the raised sword hanging above the Native person continues to fly over Massachusetts.
For Wasileski, the veteran, pacifist, and amateur percussionist, almost anything will be an improvement over the instrument of violence.
“A drum is such a better symbol than a sword because a drum reverberates and it and it brings people joy and it you can you can think about it and people ask questions about the drum," he explained to WAMC. "A sword makes people scared. And so when you start talking about reasons for changing the state symbols and what the state symbols actually mean, bringing out a drum to change the state symbols is a good thing.”
